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  <div class="section" id="module-fnmatch">
<span id="fnmatch-unix-filename-pattern-matching"></span><h1>10.8. <a class="reference internal" href="#module-fnmatch" title="fnmatch: Unix shell style filename pattern matching."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">fnmatch</span></tt></a> &#8212; Unix filename pattern matching<a class="headerlink" href="#module-fnmatch" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<span class="target" id="index-0"></span><p id="index-1"><strong>Source code:</strong> <a class="reference external" href="http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/2.7/Lib/fnmatch.py">Lib/fnmatch.py</a></p>
<hr class="docutils" />
<p>This module provides support for Unix shell-style wildcards, which are <em>not</em> the
same as regular expressions (which are documented in the <a class="reference internal" href="re.html#module-re" title="re: Regular expression operations."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">re</span></tt></a> module).  The
special characters used in shell-style wildcards are:</p>
<table border="1" class="docutils">
<colgroup>
<col width="25%" />
<col width="75%" />
</colgroup>
<thead valign="bottom">
<tr><th class="head">Pattern</th>
<th class="head">Meaning</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody valign="top">
<tr><td><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">*</span></tt></td>
<td>matches everything</td>
</tr>
<tr><td><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">?</span></tt></td>
<td>matches any single character</td>
</tr>
<tr><td><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">[seq]</span></tt></td>
<td>matches any character in <em>seq</em></td>
</tr>
<tr><td><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">[!seq]</span></tt></td>
<td>matches any character not in <em>seq</em></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>For a literal match, wrap the meta-characters in brackets.
For example, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'[?]'</span></tt> matches the character <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'?'</span></tt>.</p>
<p id="index-2">Note that the filename separator (<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'/'</span></tt> on Unix) is <em>not</em> special to this
module.  See module <a class="reference internal" href="glob.html#module-glob" title="glob: Unix shell style pathname pattern expansion."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">glob</span></tt></a> for pathname expansion (<a class="reference internal" href="glob.html#module-glob" title="glob: Unix shell style pathname pattern expansion."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">glob</span></tt></a> uses
<a class="reference internal" href="#module-fnmatch" title="fnmatch: Unix shell style filename pattern matching."><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">fnmatch()</span></tt></a> to match pathname segments).  Similarly, filenames starting with
a period are not special for this module, and are matched by the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">*</span></tt> and <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">?</span></tt>
patterns.</p>
<dl class="function">
<dt id="fnmatch.fnmatch">
<tt class="descclassname">fnmatch.</tt><tt class="descname">fnmatch</tt><big>(</big><em>filename</em>, <em>pattern</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#fnmatch.fnmatch" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>Test whether the <em>filename</em> string matches the <em>pattern</em> string, returning
<a class="reference internal" href="constants.html#True" title="True"><tt class="xref py py-const xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">True</span></tt></a> or <a class="reference internal" href="constants.html#False" title="False"><tt class="xref py py-const xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">False</span></tt></a>.  If the operating system is case-insensitive,
then both parameters will be normalized to all lower- or upper-case before
the comparison is performed.  <a class="reference internal" href="#fnmatch.fnmatchcase" title="fnmatch.fnmatchcase"><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">fnmatchcase()</span></tt></a> can be used to perform a
case-sensitive comparison, regardless of whether that&#8217;s standard for the
operating system.</p>
<p>This example will print all file names in the current directory with the
extension <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.txt</span></tt>:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">fnmatch</span>
<span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">os</span>

<span class="k">for</span> <span class="nb">file</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">os</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">listdir</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">&#39;.&#39;</span><span class="p">):</span>
    <span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">fnmatch</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">fnmatch</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">file</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">&#39;*.txt&#39;</span><span class="p">):</span>
        <span class="k">print</span> <span class="nb">file</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</dd></dl>

<dl class="function">
<dt id="fnmatch.fnmatchcase">
<tt class="descclassname">fnmatch.</tt><tt class="descname">fnmatchcase</tt><big>(</big><em>filename</em>, <em>pattern</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#fnmatch.fnmatchcase" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>Test whether <em>filename</em> matches <em>pattern</em>, returning <a class="reference internal" href="constants.html#True" title="True"><tt class="xref py py-const xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">True</span></tt></a> or
<a class="reference internal" href="constants.html#False" title="False"><tt class="xref py py-const xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">False</span></tt></a>; the comparison is case-sensitive.</p>
</dd></dl>

<dl class="function">
<dt id="fnmatch.filter">
<tt class="descclassname">fnmatch.</tt><tt class="descname">filter</tt><big>(</big><em>names</em>, <em>pattern</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#fnmatch.filter" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>Return the subset of the list of <em>names</em> that match <em>pattern</em>. It is the same as
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">[n</span> <span class="pre">for</span> <span class="pre">n</span> <span class="pre">in</span> <span class="pre">names</span> <span class="pre">if</span> <span class="pre">fnmatch(n,</span> <span class="pre">pattern)]</span></tt>, but implemented more efficiently.</p>
<p class="versionadded">
<span class="versionmodified">New in version 2.2.</span></p>
</dd></dl>

<dl class="function">
<dt id="fnmatch.translate">
<tt class="descclassname">fnmatch.</tt><tt class="descname">translate</tt><big>(</big><em>pattern</em><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#fnmatch.translate" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>Return the shell-style <em>pattern</em> converted to a regular expression.</p>
<p>Example:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">fnmatch</span><span class="o">,</span> <span class="nn">re</span>
<span class="go">&gt;&gt;&gt;</span>
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">regex</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">fnmatch</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">translate</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">&#39;*.txt&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">regex</span>
<span class="go">&#39;.*\\.txt$&#39;</span>
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">reobj</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">re</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">compile</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">regex</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">&gt;&gt;&gt; </span><span class="n">reobj</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">match</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">&#39;foobar.txt&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">&lt;_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x...&gt;</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</dd></dl>

<div class="admonition-see-also admonition seealso">
<p class="first admonition-title">See also</p>
<dl class="last docutils">
<dt>Module <a class="reference internal" href="glob.html#module-glob" title="glob: Unix shell style pathname pattern expansion."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">glob</span></tt></a></dt>
<dd>Unix shell-style path expansion.</dd>
</dl>
</div>
</div>


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